Ars Vivendi: Memento Mori
Octavia sighed as she looked at the blood pooling underneath Vinyl’s body, then trotted off to fetch the mop.
She hadn’t meant for it to happen, of course. While she had been upset that Scratch had somehow found a way to break yet another of her cellos, something like that would never cause her to raise a hoof against her wife.
Not that she could completely exculpate herself. She had, admittedly, given Scratch a playful little shove.
It was just that, being an earth pony, the gesture had had a little more effect than she’d intended.
Of course, even then, she could never have anticipated that Scratch would step back and slip on a spot of water, sending her tumbling hoof over head and into the counter. Or imagined that that impact would have tipped the knife block over. And she doubted even Celestia herself could have guessed that her brand new ten-inch chef’s knife would have slipped out of the block, spun off the counter, and plunged towards the unfortunately exposed neck of her beloved DJ.
The fact that the knife’s edge was indeed as sharp as advertised offered little solace.
She yanked open the closet door and hardly flinched when it revealed a hooded pony skull, grinning its broad and bony smile at her.
ARE YOU TIRED OF THIS YET? the Pale Trotter asked in a voice as cold as a Windigo’s kiss. Its hollow sockets burned with pale blue flames, illuminating the interior of the closet with a ghastly, ethereal glow – conveniently revealing the mop and bucket in the opposite of the expected corner.
“Sod off,” Octavia snapped, grabbing the bucket’s handle with her mouth and pulling the pair out before she kicked the door shut behind her.
Not that it made any difference. The skeletal pony simply phased through the door and followed her back towards the kitchen, breath creaking and rattling like an ancient and barren tree as it strove to keep up with her irritated pace. WE CAN END THIS WHOLE MESSY AFFAIR WHENEVER YOU WANT, OCTAVIA. YOU JUST HAVE TO SAY THE WORDS.
“I already told you to sod off,” she growled around the bucket handle, flinching as the movement cause the mop handle to shift and bop her on the snout.
YOU MUST BE—
“What part of sod off do you not understand?” The bucket clanged as it hit the ground. “And for the last time: stop lurking around our house you undead git!”
It huffed. THERE’S NO NEED TO BE RUDE.
“No need to—” Octavia sputtered. “You keep killing Scratch! I think that bloody well gives me right to be as rude to you as I want!”
OF COURSE. BLAME THE SKELETON PONY. The Pale Trotter’s ghastly flames rolled in their sockets. I HAVE KEPT YOUR PRINCESS’ DEAL IN BOTH WORD AND SPIRIT. IT’S NOT MY FAULT YOUR WIFE HAS BEEN MARKED FOR DEATH. I DON’T DO THE KILLING, JUST THE CLEAN UP. TRUST ME, IF I COULD AVOID SEEING THE TWO OF YOU SO OFTEN, I WOULD GLADLY—
Octavia picked the bucket back up and resumed her trek towards the kitchen, tuning out whatever else the specter had to say.
It took a few minutes to clean up the shattered remains of her cello, then several minutes more to mop up the majority of the blood. While she couldn’t finish cleaning with Scratch’s still-cooling corpse still occupying a large part of the kitchen, she had found that dealing with the majority of the mess first made things easier in the long run.
Once she had done as much as she felt she could, Octavia leaned down and kissed the mortal remains of her wife. Her lips tingled as the magic implanted within her activated and flowed into the body of her beloved.
After a moment, Scratch’s eyes fluttered open.
Vinyl gurgled. And, while the untrained pony would have had no idea what Vinyl was attempting to communicate, Octavia had already mastered the art of interpreting the noises made by a pony with a cut throat. These translated to, “Huh? Whuzzat? What happened?”
“Easy, love,” she said, putting a gentle yet firm hoof on Scratch’s shoulder. “You had an accident with a kitchen knife. Just lay there a moment and wait to heal.”
Once upon a time, watching Scratch’s flesh knitting back together had disgusted her. Now? Now the once grotesque sight of magical regeneration had grown dull. After all, there were only so many times you could be horrified at watching your wife’s head reattach itself or her scattered ashes reconstitute into a single pony before it started to lose its effect on you.
“And there you go!" Octavia said. "This one wasn’t too bad.”
As Scratch rose – wobbling a bit – Octavia gave her another kiss.
“You go get cleaned up while I finish with the mess.” Looking at the bloody knife on the floor, she rethought the night’s plans. Cooking no longer appealed. Not that she had time anymore anyway. “Then I’ll go get takeaway. Saddle Arabian sound good?”
It had all started a year ago.
Actually, if one were being precise, it had actually started several years ago, when a drunken Octavia, fuming over a music review in Trotting Stones magazine, had gotten into a very heated argument with a DJ in a Canterlot club that she had been forcefully dragged to.
Or maybe it had actually started when she sawed her first ragged note across a cello and gotten her cutie mark.
Or, perhaps, her birth itself had been the thing that had set her unavoidably down this path.
But, even with all she knew now, Octavia found that a rather fatalistic way to look at it.
No, it started just over a year ago, when Princess Twilight Sparkle – drunk on power after her repeat successes with reforming dastardly villains using the power of friendship – had decided to try her hoof at reforming one of the most fearsome criminals to have even been trapped within Tartarus: the Alicorn princess, Muerte Death.
Suffice to say, it did not go well.
Before the day was out, Octavia had been one of a half-dozen ponies unwillingly recruited to serve as one of her Death Knights for all eternity. Which really amounted to Octavia having her soul forcefully wrenched out of her body and cast into the depths below Tartarus, while her body did some really bad things in her absence.
In the end, while Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends dealt with the trouble above, Scratch had come for her, challenging the reaper that guarded the gates that led beyond Tartarus for her immortal soul and winning her passage back to the land of the living through an impromptu musical throwdown. Unfortunately, going beyond Tartarus is generally supposed to be a permanent affair, so, in the end, all Scratch had really done was trade herself for Octavia.
And Octavia wouldn’t have that.
Marching straight to Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle, Octavia had demanded that she, as the pony responsible for this mess, fix it. It had taken days of studying ancient pony law, some very clever legal interpretations, a not insignificant amount of necromancy, a healthy dose of Chaos magic, and Octavia threatening to destroy the realms of the dead, but the end result had been Scratch’s return.
And their current predicament.
Vinyl stood under the shower head, staring at the ground as the water washed over her and the red swirled down the drain. Twenty minutes in the bath, and there was still blood in her fur.
And they were out of usable soap and brushes.
Again.
She sighed and sat down, the recently installed no-slip mat barely shifting under her. Her throat still hurt. Sure, it might’ve looked good as new, but the pain always took a while to go away. Princess Twilight’d told her it was just some sorta psycho-something-or-other, but knowing that really didn’t help.
If it hurt, it hurt.
YOU DON’T HAVETO KEEP COMING BACK, YOU KNOW.
Vinyl nearly had a heart attack – something she had experience with – and barely managed to contain an indignant squeak of shock as the Pale Trotter appeared next to her, soggy black cloak clinging to its bones and flaming eyes hissing out as water ran over them.
After a moment of standing under the spray, he sighed. YOU’RE IN THE SHOWER.
“I’m in the shower,” Vinyl growled in agreement.
MY POINT STANDS, THOUGH. THE CONTRACT STIPULATES THAT OCTAVIA CANNOT REVIVE YOU WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT. IF YOU WISH TO PASS ON AGAIN, YOU CAN. WHENEVER YOU’D LIKE. Noting her silence, he pressed on. RIGHT NOW, EVEN, IF YOU REALLY WANTED.
Vinyl eyed him. “Don’t you have better things to do? Like, I’m sure there are plenty of other ponies dying somewhere not in our shower.”
YES. THERE ARE. AND THAT IS WHY YOUR ERRATIC MORTALITY— He paused, raising a hoof towards the showerhead. COULD YOU PLEASE TURN THAT OFF? I THINK IT’S RUINING MY CLOAK. AND HAS EXTINGUISHED MY EYES.
“No,” she said, emphasizing her point by resuming her efforts to scrub away the blood still clinging to her breast.
YOU HAVE TO ADMIT, THIS ARRANGEMENT KIND OF SUCKS FOR EVERYPONY INVOLVED. SURE, YOU GENERALLY GET TO KEEP LIVING, BUT… WELL. OCTAVIA SPENDS A LOT OF TIME PICKING UP THE PIECES. The Pale Trotter coughed, its bones rattling. LITERALLY, ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION.
Vinyl tried not to think too hard about those times as she continued to scrub.
YOU’VE HAD A GOOD RUN, VINYL. YOU RESCUED YOUR WIFE FROM TARTARUS. YOU EVEN GOT TO COME BACK AND SPEND MORE THAN A YEAR WITH HER AFTERWARDS. NOT MANY PONIES CAN SAY THEY DID THAT. NO OTHER PONIES, IN FACT.
She did her best to keep ignoring him, even as he set a bony hoof on her shoulder.
I GET IT. TRUST ME. IT’S SCARY. I’M SCARY. BUT YOU ALL HAVE TO GO SOMETIME. AND, WELL, IF I HAD A WIFE? I CERTAINLY WOULDN’T WANT HER GETTING COMFORTABLE WITH MOPPING SIX PINTS OF MY BLOOD OFF THE FLOOR.
Despite her best efforts, the scrubbing slowed.
NOT ONLY IS THAT PROBABLY VERY ANNOYING TO HAVE TO DO, BUT HONESTLY? IT’S KIND OF CREEPY. YOU HAVE TO HAVE GONE TO SOME PRETTY DARK PLACES TO BE OKAY DOING STUFF LIKE THAT.
She finally stopped and turned to face him, doing her best to not let him see anything in her expression but annoyance. It didn’t really work.
JUST SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT. The Pale Trotter grinned. Not that he could do anything else. REMEMBER: I’LL BE THERE WHEN YOU NEED ME.
“Scratch! I’m back!” Tavi’s voice rose above the sound of the shower, causing Vinyl to turn away.
When she looked back, the Pale Trotter was gone.
Vinyl only hesitated a moment before she stood and stepped out of the shower. “Cool! I’m nearly—”
The rest of her words died in her throat as she tripped over the shower’s lip and slammed muzzle first into the floor at just the right angle to snap her neck.
Octavia grumbled as she slathered jelly across the toast she’d prepared for their breakfast. And slathered was most definitely the right term as she struggled to smooth out the mountain of preserves that she’d accidentally loaded onto the bread.
“Sure you don’t want me to help with that?” Vinyl asked from the dining room table.
“I’m sure, Scratch,” she said. What she didn’t say was that she wanted to minimize the opportunities for Scratch to get herself killed. While she missed having a helping hoof with breakfast, there were just too many things in the kitchen there that threatened to turn a pleasant morning into another hour of corpse clean-up.
Besides, there were benefits to using too much jelly. Like getting to buy new jelly. The kind that came in non-unicorn friendly squeezable bottles. She added that to her mental shopping list: soap, brushes, rags, a new mop, bleach, more foal-proofing supplies, more rugs, and food stuffs that didn’t require the help of a horn to easily access.
A little help would be nice. Maybe they could hire a housecleaner. Though it would probably be challenging to find one that didn’t mind dealing with viscera.
“Thanks for cooking! It smells great!” Scratch said, beaming as Octavia dropped the last of the plates on the table.
“You’re welcome. Remember to eat slowly." The words didn't even route through her brain, instead being uttered as unconscious habit. “And take small bites.”
Scratch’s smile faded just a little, a heaping forkful of hashbrowns stopping just short of her mouth. “Right, right.”
The two ate in the comfortable silence of a couple who had long ago dispensed with the need to fill the air with idle prattle every second of every day. Or, perhaps, simply the comfortable silence of a couple who did not wish to discuss the unmitigated disaster that yesterday had been.
Poking at her hash browns, Scratch broke it. “You going to be okay?”
“Hm?”
“Your cello. You have a recital next week, don’t you?”
Octavia smiled. “Scratch, I learned very shortly into dating you that I should have backups of anything I might need. Instruments included. This marks, what? The fifth cello you have somehow found a way to break? I’ve come to expect it. It is just one of your many, many quirks.” Her smile grew. “Though, I will admit, one I would not mind you dispensing of. Really. I mean it. I would not miss that at all.”
Scratch chuckled, running a hoof through her adorably unruly mane. “Yeah. I really am sorry.”
“It’s fine, really.” Octavia’s smile withered as she looked down at her plate. “Though, about that recital…”
“Yeah?”
“I was wondering…” Her heart pounded against her ribs as she tried to force the words out. She had been wrestling with the thought of this request for the last week, willing herself to forget it at every opportunity, but all their recent misfortunes had made it an inevitability. “I wanted to ask you…”
She could see the worry starting to creep over Scratch’s expression. “Yeah?”
“Could you not come?”
Scratch stared at her, realization setting in behind those cerise orbs. It wasn’t too hard to see the brief flicker of pain there either. “Oh. Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure! I get it. No worries.”
“I mean, I still want you to come with me to Canterlot, of course. It’s just—”
“It’s cool, Tavi. You don’t have to explain yourself.” Sliding off her seat, Scratch walked around the table and kissed her on the side of her muzzle, grinning like a fool. “Pretty sure it'd spoil the show if your marefriend had a chandelier drop on her, or she fell down the theater steps and broke her neck, or got murdered by some crazy music critic, or whatever. The conservatory probably wouldn’t be too eager to call you back, either.”
Octavia bit her lip. She wanted to deny it, of course. To say that she really wanted Scratch there, sitting in the front row, just like she always did. But she didn’t. She just nodded. “Thanks for understanding, love.”
The Pale Trotter sat on top of the train, watching the world speed by. Or, at least, the tiny portion of the Trotter's existence that it had set aside to deal with Vinyl sat on the roof of the train. The rest of it was and was not in any number of other locations right now, ferrying the dearly departed to their final resting places.
Like it should be.
The wind howled as it rushed through its skeletal body.
There were advantages to not needing to be everywhere at once, though. The Pale Trotter had never really had much in the way of leisure time before, as it had only allowed any portion of its existence to persist long enough to perform its task and then that was that. After all, there was always somecreature else who needed its services. What point had there been to lingering?
But watching Vinyl? It no longer had any concept of when she would die. It could be now. It could be in a second. It could be in an hour. It could be never. It did not know.
And that was quite novel.
It poked its head through the roof of the train and gazed down at the pair of ponies slouching in their seats. To its surprise though, they weren’t talking.
The Pale Trotter would be the first to admit that it was not exactly an expert when it came to intercreature relationships. It would, in fact, admit that it had about as much practical familiarity with them as a mushroom did. But it did feel that the past year had given it some insight into the relationship between Vinyl and Octavia, and this just felt… off.
They weren’t talking. They weren’t cuddling. They weren’t sitting close enough to just let their flanks touch. They weren’t even looking at each other. They were barely an inch apart, but from what it’d observed, they might as well have been miles apart.
Could its words finally be having an effect?
Its heart – if it’d had one – should have leapt at the very idea.
Instead, it felt something that it lacked a real understanding of. A sort of emptiness.
Moreso than normal.
It continued to stare for another minute before lifting its head back through the car and setting its sights on the distant speck that was Canterlot.
Vinyl sat on the bed in their Canterlot suite, staring out the window, imagining she could somehow see the Canterlot Royal Theater.
Ever since they’d started dating, she’d seen all of Tavi’s recitals. She’d passed up gigs to keep her schedule free. She’d ditched her own shows mid-set to make it on time. She’d snuck past ushers when she hadn’t. She’d always made a point to be there, right in the front row, right where Tavi’d see her.
And now Tavi didn’t want her there.
She’d left snacks, though. ‘Cause it’d be super inconvenient if Vinyl got hungry, went on a walk, and then got hit by a cart.
Flopping back on the bed, the smart half of her brain tried to reassure that that wasn’t the case. Tavi just wanted Vinyl to be comfortable. She didn’t want her to get hurt. And not just because it’d make the day awkward.
Then she thought about what the Pale Trotter had said.
If she was lucky, she could manage to go a few days without dying. But, no matter how careful they were, how many precautions they took, something eventually found a way to kill her. Freak accidents. Bad falls. Muggers. Asteroid strikes.
It was bad. You couldn’t get used to dying. Even knowing Tavi could bring her right back, it never stopped eating at her, wondering when it’d happen next. And, of course, it hurt like a bitch most of the time. Other times...
Sometimes the aftermath was the worst part. She hadn’t really felt it when a rogue dragon had incinerated her, but getting reduced to ash had definitely left some serious psycho-whatever effects. She’d been a quivering, blubbering wreck for days after.
And Tavi’d been there for her. She’d ditched all her other obligations and they’d just snuggled until Vinyl had been able to stop crying. And that’s what their life had been for the last year.
Tavi comforting her whenever she had a nervous breakdown.
Tavi cleaning up her corpse.
Tavi coming up with new ideas to try and secure their house.
Tavi doing all the work.
Tavi getting used to watching her wife die over and over and over again.
She deserved better than that, right?
Vinyl rubbed at the tears building in the corner of her eyes.
They’d had a good run. They’d gotten more than they should have.
Maybe that was enough.
Octavia peered out into the packed auditorium from behind the curtain. Even in the dim light she could make out the legions of Canterlot’s elite. Everypony who was anypony was out there right now, waiting to hear the one and only Octavia Melody perform.
No.
Almost everypony. She knew, for sure, there was one pony who wasn’t attending.
She pulled away from the curtain and began to pace.
“Are you alright, Miss Melody?” Spot Light, the stage manager, asked.
“Yes, yes, I’m perfectly fine.”
He offered her a doubting look. “If you don’t mind me saying, I haven’t seen you pace like this since your first time on the Canterlot stage.”
“I’m fine, you silly old bugger!” she snapped, the instantaneous regret as he flinched barely managing to register against the pit in her stomach. But it did. “Sorry, Spot Light. I just…” she trailed off, glancing back at the curtain. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No.” She shook her head as she sat back. What she didn’t say was that it was because she had made sure they wouldn’t come. “I’ll be fine. I’ll fix it after the show.”
Vinyl rolled over on the bed to find herself snout to skull with the Pale Trotter. “Figures you’d be here.”
The skeletal pony sighed. THIS IS… I SUPPOSE YOU WOULD SAY “SAD.”
“Shock,” Vinyl said. “This sucks. Shouldn’t you be wearing some sort of stupid party hat and tossing confetti?”
His flaming eyes blinked out. THAT WOULD BE FITTING, YES.
“Then why aren’t you?”
The Pale Trotter just turned and faced out towards Canterlot.
“So what’s really on the other side?” Vinyl asked. “Might as well spoil it for me.”
I DO NOT KNOW.
Vinyl found the energy to quirk an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
THINK OF IT LIKE A REALLY EXCLUSIVE – WELL, NOT EXCLUSIVE, BUT YOU GET THE IDEA – CLUB. I’M JUST THE DOORPONY. I LET YOU IN, BUT I’M STUCK OUTSIDE.
“That metaphor sucks,” Vinyl grumbled.
SIMILE, the Pale Trotter corrected. I SAID “LIKE A CLUB.” THAT MAKES IT A SIMILE.
“Fine,” Vinyl said. “That simile sucks.”
Silence filled the room. The classic, uncomfortable and awkward sort.
The Pale Trotter rolled off the bed and walked toward the window.
“So, I just need to not want to come back next time and that’ll be that?” Vinyl asked. “I’m dead for real? No coming back?”
YES. The Pale Trotter shifted from hoof to hoof, looking back towards her and then back out the window. If Vinyl didn’t know better, she’d suspect he needed to take a leak with the way he was fidgeting.
“What the buck is your problem now?” Vinyl snapped, annoyance finally overtaking her languishing spirit. “You spend the better part of a year hounding me and Tavi about how annoying my revivals are and how I’m a huge burden and how I’m ruining her life and it’d be so much better if I just gave up the ghost, but now you’re acting like I just kicked your freakin’ puppy.”
Sitting, the Pale Trotter shook its head. YOU TWO HAVE BEEN A PHENOMENAL DISRUPTION TO MY EXISTENCE. MY JOB IS TO HELP PONIES ACCEPT THAT THEY ARE DEAD. NOT COMING BACK. NO MATTER HOW MUCH UNFINISHED BUSINESS THEY HAVE OR HOW UNFAIR THEY THINK THEIR DEATH WAS. I AM QUITE GOOD AT IT. I HAVE KEPT EQUESTRIA GHOST FREE FOR OVER A MILLENIA.
Vinyl clapped her hooves. “Good work. Guess we really messed that up for you, huh?”
I DO NOT SPEND MUCH TIME WITH PONIES. A FEW MINUTES AT MOST, GENERALLY. YOU ARE AN ANOMALY.
“Kinda worked that one out already. What’s your point?”
The Pale Trotter looked back at her, the flames in his eyes flickering. I DO NOT KNOW. I SUPPOSE THAT, IF I HAD THE CHANCE TO PUT OFF THE ENDING OF SOMETHING SPECIAL, I WOULD DO IT FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.
Vinyl stared. “What?”
Shrugging, the Pale Trotter started for the window, its body growing translucent as it passed through the solid surface and disappearing as it reached the open air.
“Hey, wait, you can’t just drop something like that and then bail!” Vinyl snapped, sitting up in bed. “What the buck was that supposed to mean?”
Of course, even as Vinyl uttered the words, she knew it was a stupid question. The meaning was patently obvious.
She was being an idiot.
Hopping off the bed, Vinyl rushed out the door without a second thought.
Octavia’s bow ran across the strings, but her heart was still. The piece was supposed to carry with it the joy of the Summer Sun Celebration, but, to her ears, it echoed hollow and empty. Even the ponies in the audience seemed able to feel it, strange glances and muted whispers seeming to fill the auditorium and drown out her melancholy music.
Her ears twitched at the noise of a door opening across the grand hall.
Even with the spotlights shining at her eyes and the house lights dimmed to bare pinpricks, she could recognize the outline of her beloved DJ in the door. Her heart leapt and with it the music soared.
By the time she had finished and the applause thundered around her, she was lost in her own world. Joyful tears filled her eyes as Scratch leapt onto the stage and slammed into her, sending the two sprawling in a loving embrace, muzzles locked in a kiss before they had even stopped sliding.
“I’m sorry,” Octavia whispered, pressing her muzzle to Vinyl’s over and over again. “I shouldn’t have asked you not to come, Scratch!”
“It’s fine!” Vinyl managed between kisses. “It’s fine! Really!”
“Even if it’s tough, I want us to last as long as we can. No matter how hard it is. No matter how many stupid things happen. No matter how much bloody bleach I have to buy! I don’t want you to go without me!”
“I won’t,” Scratch promised. “I’ll always come back to you. Here and wherever comes after.”
Octavia kissed Scratch again. There were no words left. No more feelings that needed to be explained. Nothing else that needed to be regretted.
In that moment, everything was perfect, and nothing could take that away.
Not even the stage light that fell and crushed Scratch.
